In the past 25 years the prevalence of modern slavery and human trafficking has increased, while accountability has remained stagnant.

Our mission is to promote the systemic adoption of existing and new international mechanisms to counter modern slavery and human trafficking, and to eliminate incentives that drive crimes of exploitation.

About the ‘$30B by 2030’ Initiative

Kevin Hyland OBE highlights the crucial lack of resources to combat modern slavery and human trafficking. It is time for the G20 and supporting countries to devote at least $30 billion every year to the fight against human trafficking, instead of $1 billion today! We want to see this in place by 2030.

This conference was organized by the Permanent Observer Mission of the Sovereign Order of Malta to the United Nations in New York in collaboration with Global Strategic Operatives, and co-sponsored by the Permanent Missions of France, Mexico, Liechtenstein, Mexico, Nigeria, the Philippines as well as FAST Initiative (Finance Against Slavery and Trafficking).

It is nearly 25 years since the Palermo Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons was first drafted and 95 years since the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Forced Labour Convention. In 2008, the ILO estimated that out of 12.4 million people in forced labour, 2.5 million were trafficked accounting for approximately US $32 billion in profits. Today, the estimate is 27.6 million in all forms of forced labour accounting for $236 billion in profits. These huge increases strongly indicate that strategies to protect the vulnerable and combat-forced labour and trafficking have not been effective.

Kevin Hyland OBE, with a panel of experts, discusses the success and failures in the fight against modern slavery and human trafficking. He calls for $30Billion per year to be invested by 2030.

Who We Are

  • Following 30 years in policing, including leading London’s Human Trafficking Unit, in 2014 Kevin Hyland OBE was appointed the UK’s first Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner.

    He authored and led inclusion of Sustainable Development Goal 8.7 to eradicate human trafficking within the United Nations 15-year strategic priorities.

    In 2018 Mr Hyland was elected Ireland’s representative to the Council of Europe Independent Group of Experts for Trafficking. He was instrumental in establishing and remains a special advisor to the Santa Marta Group, a high-level partnership between law enforcement agencies, faith groups and civil society launched by Pope Francis at the Vatican. He was one of the instigators for Bakhita House, a London based residential project for women and children who have experienced human trafficking. He is chair of Arise and Rahab, both UK frontline human trafficking charities who provide support domestically and overseas. He is on the board of homeless charity The Passage.

    In recognition of his policing and human trafficking efforts in 2015 he was appointed OBE. In 2018 he was co-recipient of the ‘Path to peace Award’ in New York. In 2019 he was awarded the UN Women UK ‘HeForShe’ Leadership Award and in 2020 the UN Women for Peace Association Advocacy Award.

    He has a Master of Laws LL.M (first) from University of Limerick Law School.

    He is a visiting professor to St. Mary’s University, London. He has advised legislators in several countries in drafting new laws and provided training and lectured on human rights and policing in Europe, Australia, Central Asia, SE Asia, the USA, Pakistan, India, across the Middle East and South America. 

  • He was recently founder and managing director of Liberty Shared, a leading NGO that focused on anti-human and wildlife trafficking, and environmental crime, and Special Adviser to The Santa Marta Group. In 2023, he received a Certificate of Merit from the World Customs Organization for the first of its kind investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice and Homeland Securities Investigation and successful settlement addressing forced labor in the global supply chain of a Fortune 500 company, Goodyear Tire and Rubber Corporation. He led successful actions to ban by U.S. Customs and Border Protection of both palm oil and sugar imports into the U.S. In 2020, Liberty Shared was awarded the first Executive Associate Director Award of Homeland Security Investigations for “Exemplary Partnership” for work on forced labor. He was recently runner-up to win the Financial Crime Fighter of the Year 2023 awarded by the Global Coalition To Fight Financial Crime. Liberty Shared worked closely with Asia Pacific Group providing typologies and training to FIUs and was the first NGO to provide typologies and other actionable information about human trafficking to financial institutions in 2013.

    Duncan has recently joined the faculty at USC Dornsife Wrigley School Institute of Environment and Sustainability. He taught policy and social entrepreneurship at Princeton University for four years, strategic leadership at the Eisenhower School at the National Defense University, and is an affiliated scholar at Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of International Migration, where he taught corporate accountability. Previously, he was Head of Legal for BNY Mellon Investment Management Asia Pacific and for nearly a decade was Regional General Counsel and Head of Compliance at ING Investment Management Asia Pacific, one of Asia’s largest investment businesses, responsible for M&A, governance, product development and internal investigation. In the 1990s, before becoming a corporate finance lawyer, he ran a supply chain consultancy based in the UK and China. He has a degree in accountancy and financial management, a MBA and is a qualified solicitor of England and Wales. He has written and produced various films and novels.